Samir Arora
Samir Arora | |
---|---|
Born | November 5, 1965 |
Alma mater | INSEAD, London Business School, BITS. |
Occupation | Chairman of Information Capital |
Known for | Founder & CEO Sage Digital, at Apple Inc., Founder Project Bento, Co-founder & former CEO NetObjects, Founder former CEO of Mode Media |
Samir Arora (born November 5, 1965) is an Indian-American businessman and CEO of Sage Digital since April 2016, the former CEO of Mode Media (formerly Glam Media) from 2003 to April 2016. He was CEO and chairman of the web design company NetObjects, Inc. from 1995 to 2001 and at Apple Inc. from 1982 to 1991. Arora was selected as one of the 21 Internet Pioneers that shaped the World Wide Web at the 1st Web Innovators Awards by CNET in 1997.[1]
Early life and education[]
Samir Arora was born in New Delhi, India. He studied electrical and electronic engineering at Birla Institute of Technology and Science.[2] Arora has an EMP from INSEAD, attended Executive Education at Harvard Business School, and holds a diploma in Sales and Marketing from the London Business School.[3]
Career[]
Samir Arora worked at Apple[2] in Software and New Media from 1982 to 1991. Arora wrote a white paper called "Information Navigation: The Future of Computing" in late 1986[2] while working directly for the chairman and CEO of Apple, John Sculley.[4] He left Apple to found the spin-off Rae Technology from Apple.[5][6]
From 1992 to 1995, Arora was chairman and chief executive officer of Rae Technology. In 1995 Samir Arora co-founded NetObjects, Inc. and together with a design and development team including David Kleinberg, Clement Mok and his brother, Sal Arora, created NetObjects Fusion, one of the first Web design products that allowed Web sites to be designed, structured and created without programming.[7]
In 1997, after the launch of NetObjects Fusion, IBM invested approximately $100 million in a share exchange to buy 80% of NetObjects, corresponding to a valuation of around $150 million.[8] NetObjects, Inc. went public on NASDAQ in 1999 with IBM staying the majority shareholder.[9] From June 2003 to February 2004, Arora served as chairman of the board of Tickle, Inc.,[10] one of the first social networking sites founded in 1999.[11] Tickle was acquired by Monster.com in May 2004.
In 2003, Mode Media (formerly Project Y and then Glam Media), Inc. was formed by a number of people including Arora.[12] Arora was the interim CEO of Glam Media from 2003 to 2005, and CEO from 2006 to 2016.[13] For his work at Mode Media, Arora was included by MIN Magazine in the Digital Hot List 2008[14] and was named Web 2.0's Don Draper as one of the 30 men shaping our digital future by GQ Magazine [15] On June, 2017, a year and a half after the departure of Samir Arora and Marc Andreessen, Mode Media U.S. was acquired by BrideClick, who changed the company name to Glam, Inc.[16][17] Mode Media continued its operations in International and in January, 2017 an investment group Montaro purchased Mode Media in Japan. In March, 2017 shareholders appointed Samir Arora as the executive chairman of Mode Media in Japan.[18][19]
In April 2016, Samir Arora founded Sage Digital, a new AI verified experts platform startup and currently operates as its chief executive officer. Sage began with 100 manually curated experts and has grown to 250k experts and influencers and 5 million businesses.[20][21]
In July 2020, Arora with Marcus Samuelsson, Derek Evens, and Brad Koenig created Project Bento Fund, a California nonprofit corporation to provides urgent support to restaurants, local, minority-owned and BIPIOC businesses and their employees most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, economic, racial and social crisis.[22]
Books[]
Arora was editor and publisher of the annual awards and book Foodie Top 100 Restaurants with contributing top food critics Patricia Wells, Ruth Reichl, Gael Greene, Masuhiro Yamamoto, Jonathan Gold, Bruno Verjus, Alexander Lobrano, Charles Campion, Vir Sanghvi, Aun Koh, Susumu Ohta, Kundo Koyama, Yuki Yamamura, Karen Brooks, Phil Vettel, Marie-Claude Lortie, Erika Lenkert and Diane Tapscott [23][24]
References[]
- ^ Shafer, Dan. "BUILDER.COM - Web Business - The 1st annual Web Innovator Awards - Samir Arora, NetObjects Fusion". CNET Builder.com. CNET Networks, Inc. Archived from the original on 2000-12-15.
- ^ a b c Davidson, Andrew (June 22, 2008). "Glam.com Samir Arora boss is in the pink". Times Online. London: Times Newspapers Ltd. Archived from the original on June 12, 2011. Retrieved June 23, 2008.CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
- ^ "FACE TO FACE - NET LUMINARY - vnunet.com". 2007-09-30. Archived from the original on September 30, 2007. Retrieved 2016-06-13.CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
- ^ Menuez, Doug (2014-06-03). Fearless Genius: The Digital Revolution in Silicon Valley 1985-2000. Page 53. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9781476752730.
- ^ Inc, InfoWorld Media Group (1994-01-17). InfoWorld. InfoWorld Media Group, Inc.
- ^ Inc, InfoWorld Media Group (1993-02-22). InfoWorld. InfoWorld Media Group, Inc.
- ^ "Gold Industrial Design Excellence Award (IDEA) Winners 1995–1999". Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA). Archived from the original on 1998-05-19. Retrieved June 27, 2008.
- ^ Sreenivas, I. Satya (May 18, 1997). "NetObjects chooses Big Blue fusion". Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal. Retrieved 2008-03-05.
- ^ "February 5, 1999 Form S-1 Filing". SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION. Retrieved June 23, 2008.
- ^ "Emode Names Samir Arora Chairman of the Board, Enters Media Metrix Top 50". ADVFN PLC. Retrieved February 28, 2008.
- ^ Juan Carlos Perez. "Social networking site Emode tickles Ringo". Infoworld. Archived from the original on August 8, 2007. Retrieved February 28, 2008.
- ^ "Leadership - Mode Media". Mode Media. Archived from the original on June 17, 2016. Retrieved June 24, 2016.
- ^ Ha, Anthony. "Samir Arora is stepping down as CEO of Mode Media". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-06-13.
- ^ "min magazine 2008 The Digital Hot List: Samir Arora". min Online. Access Intelligence, LLC. Retrieved November 23, 2008.
- ^ "Digital Top 30". GQ Magazine.
- ^ Gage, Deborah (2016-09-15). "Billion Dollar-Valued Mode Media Shuts Down". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2016-09-16.
- ^ Ha, Anthony. "BrideClick acquires Mode Media". TechCrunch.
- ^ Ha, Anthony. "Mode Media Japan lives on, with founder Samir Arora as chairman". TechCrunch.
- ^ Zerega, Blaise. "Mode Media: An IPO that never happened and a company that won't die". Venturebeat.
- ^ Ha, Anthony. "Samir Arora unveils Sage Digital, a startup that is all about accurate location data". TechCrunch.
- ^ Jarvis, Jeff. "The Next Net Expertise". BuzzMachine.
- ^ McCafferty, Hugo. "Chef Samuelsson's Project Bento - a New Platform for Food Non-Profits".
- ^ Foodie Top 100 Restaurants. Chronicle Books. 13 August 2013. ISBN 978-1452127910.
- ^ "Foodie Top 100 Restaurants 2016 Awards".
- 1965 births
- Internet pioneers
- Apple Inc. employees
- American computer businesspeople
- American venture capitalists
- Living people
- American software engineers
- INSEAD alumni
- Alumni of London Business School
- Harvard Business School alumni
- Silicon Valley people
- Indian emigrants to the United States
- American businesspeople of Indian descent